WorldTour’s Rabobank Renamed Blanco Pro Cycling Team

Rabobank Pro Cycling team will be under a new banner next season when they will be renamed the Blanco Pro Cycling.

Rabobank is pulling out of the sport and ending its 17-year relationship with the Dutch squad on December 31 in the wake of the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

The banking giant’s decision has left the team and its riders facing an uncertain future and, despite the new name, they still have just one year to find a main sponsor in order to remain in the sport.

Several changes have been made to the team’s management structure ahead of the 2013 season, with Harald Knebel, of Rabobank, being replaced as director by communications manager Richard Plugge.

Global manufacturer Giant will stay on as a sub-sponsor and supply Blanco Pro Cycling with bikes.

The women’s team will continue to be named Rabobank Liv / Giant Team, but will now be managed be an independent foundation established by Marianne Vos, their leader and Olympic champion.

The Continental team, meanwhile, will continue to be sponsored by Rabobank until 2016, albeit under a new foundation set up by the Dutch Cycling Federation.

Rabobank announced it was withdrawing its sponsorship of the men’s WorldTour team in October, saying that it was “no longer convinced” cycling could be rid of doping, or that the situation would improve, in the aftermath of the revelations about the doping programme run by the US Postal Service team between 1999 and 2005.